


Look at yourself

by SlinkySpiders



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Awkwardness, Car Accidents, Crying, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Slash sorta, T, dont read if like car accidents etc. trigger you b/c although it isnt bloody its bloody sad man, hinata cant play volleyball, not amputee but, paraplegic, see im warning you this is not going to be a fun ride, so yeah just as a warnign for people who have been through this shit, they mightve kissed once but nothing is solid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-15 21:15:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3462359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlinkySpiders/pseuds/SlinkySpiders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People say that you have to live in the moment, because you never know what might be coming round the corner. </p>
<p>For Hinata Shouyou, that turned out to be a Toyota Camry speeding through the four-way intersection. </p>
<p>"Wait, wait, wait are you saying he can never walk again?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look at yourself

**Author's Note:**

> ahahhahaaa dont kill me
> 
> basics:  
> -this is part of a series  
> -not a multi-chapter b/c it features oneshots from their journey from the crash until the team reaches finals.

When Hinata missed early morning practice, no one was worried, but no one was relaxed either. Tense, sparse moments stretched into the afternoon and the evening. Kageyama was itching to call his friend, but knew that there was a very small chance Hinata would pick up his phone. The kid was always forgetting to charge it. 

The sun was a disc on the horizon when Takeda had gone pale white and called the team together. His hands were a shaking mess, and his glasses were about to fill with tears. 

"Hinata's been in a car accident. He just got out of surgery and they say he might not live through the night." 

Nishinoya broke down. Collapsing into his legs, he let out a wail that pierced everyone's hearts and shattered their continued practice. Tanaka fell next to him, not as loud but rattling with rage and despair. Daichi covered his face with his hands while Suga wrapped his hands around his arm. Yamaguchi was crying on Tsukishima's shoulder while said blonde took off his glasses and closed his eyes, breathing deeply. Asahi had tears running down his cheeks but no noise spilled from his lips. 

Ukai left the room. 

Kiyoko and Yachi were both stunned. Yachi was hiccupping. A wet sort of cry that eventually was mixed with the rest of the sobs echoing in the gym. Kageyama was silent. He did not cry or sob, nor did he scream or yell. No one was clinging to him or pushing on him or  _demanding_ that he join in with their sorrow. He didn't know how to feel. Bursts of emotion felt like frigid waves pounding into his heart. Both icy and sharp, they numbed him from the waist down and he distantly wondered if he was being warned somehow.

And then it hit him and he couldn't take it. He couldn't take Yachi's bleary face or Nishinoya's balled fists or Suga's soft words of worry. He ran out of the gym and tumbled down the stairs. His left foot caught the bottom step and he fell on his face, knees scrapped up in the process. He pressed his forehead to the dirt, not caring if his eyes stung from the dust and his mouth tasted like cardboard. He screamed into the earth. Hot and dry, his yells were like those of a soldier caught in a slaughter. 

Deep and vocal, he couldn't stop the emotion from pouring into the ground. He was burning. Burning so deep inside that he thought the fire might consume him. 

His head pounded with turbulent thought and he wished to be let go from it all. How,  _how, how how how how hwowiwowwi_

His breaths were heavy and eyes shut tight. He felt someone shake his shoulder but he didn't care. He didn't care about anyone other than his beautiful spiker wrapped up in bandages and breathing  _on fucking life support._

"Kageyama. We're going to the hospital now," Suga told him. His voice was cracked and Kageyama wanted to yell at him to  _shut the fuck up_ but he didn’t. What held his words back was that he didn't know if he could bear singing Shouyou in a goddamn hospital bed. 

"No, I mean-I ca-n't," He choked out. 

Suga crouched in front of him, knees touching Kageyama's head, "We're a team Kageyama. We ha-ave to support Hinata together. Come on.  _Please."_

Kagayama hated that tone of voice. But he couldn't get away from it. Deep down, he thought, he knew that if he didn't go to the hospital this instant that he would most likely never go himself. That this hesitation and cowardice would be the stemming excuse for never visiting Shouyou. Because he was so,  _so_ scared of the sight that would greet him that even pulling himself up from the ground to face what he was grieving over was a great obstacle.

Nishinoya spoke close to his ear now, "I kn-know tha-that it's hard but w-we-we got-tt-tta go man!" His words were spliced by hiccups and Tanaka's background noise. 

Kageyama nodded, although the motion just felt like he was falling,  _falling, falling no I don't want to go._  

He went anyways. 

Stuffed inside Ukai's and Takeda's cars, the team left without a care. Reminders of the crash kept them silent and steady, and Kageyama cursed himself for scanning the road for signs of where it occurred. His morbid human curiosity was going to eat him up inside, because he honestly  _didn't_ want to see where Hinata had been crushed under metal and plastic light covers an-

"Hey, hey calm down Kageyama," Daichi said, shaking him. 

Kageyama looked away from the window, "Sorry, I jus-what?" 

"You were muttering under your breath and crying, " Kiyoko told him. 

_What?_

_Was he that detached?_

_When had he become this involved with Hinata Shouyou?_

The hospital smelled like medicine and paper and Kageyama hated it. He hated the little chairs he was forced to sit in and he hated Yachi's attempt to break up the mood and he hated the dumb nurse who gave him hot chocolate like  _everything's going to be fine!_ because it wasn't fine and he wasn't fine and Shouyou  _wasn't fine._

His mother came at one point and gave him some clothes and homework. She didn't say much and he hadn't even called her, but at that moment he felt extremely grateful that she  _assumed_ he was going to stay over. She had to go home, but she kissed him on the head and lingered for a little. The team stayed until 2am, when the doctor had come out and told them Shouyou was looking much better now and that his chances of living had increased by some percent. 

Only Daichi, Yachi, and the duo (Nishinoya and Tanaka + his sister) stayed around. The others dragged themselves home in heaps. Suga said he would be back in the early morning with food. He said he needed space to sort out his feelings. 

Kageyama needed Shouyou. 

When they were finally let it, it was 8am and the team had returned (minus Tsukishima, who claimed he had something else to do. That fact alone made Kageyama want to break his nose). Shouyou was sleeping. He looked so  _wrong_ being purple and navy. Wrapped in white and sickly, pale blue he was nothing more than a patient on the cusp of death. Natsu was sleeping in a chair next to him while his mother spoke on the phone. 

His hair had been shaved because of a cut on the front of his scalp. It seemed that fucking driver had even removed Hinata's trademark. 

Kageyama pulled up a chair and rubbed his cheek with his index finger. No one commented on it, but watched as the setter cried once more over his best friend sitting in that hospital bed. 

"He's quite lucky," The doctor said, standing in front of Shouyou's hospital bed like a grim reaper, "He sustained a lot of injuries." 

"Will he have a full recovery?" Suga asked shakily. 

Nishinoya was silent again. 

The doctor sighed, "Mostly, yes. The superficial stuff should heal nicely. Such as the cut on his head and arm. However, Hinata-san was in an awkward position during the crash so.."

"So what?" Tanaka barked.

"He injured his spinal cord. Although we aren't sure, we believe that the injury will lead to complications in his legs. We're monitoring it closely, but it looks like he may be paralyzed from the waist down." 

Kageyama felt his heart burst.

"Wait, wait, wait are you saying he can never walk again?" Kageyama asked.

The doctor nodded. 

Suga covered his mouth. 

Hinata's mother gave them long looks, as if she had already predicted this, and Kageyama wished she would knock it off. He didn't know to deal with this, he didn't know what to say or how to tell Hinata  _he would never play volleyball again._

The doctor sighed, "There is a slim chance of recovery, but since we haven't determined the extent of the damage, it's too soon to know." 

He left in a hurry, seemingly called away for another patient. 

Nishinoya had his face pressed up against Tanaka's back, breathing deeply. Their hands were laced, but Kageyama knew that the soft hand pressed up against Nishinoya's back (courtesy of Asahi) was where his heart lay. Tanaka was a deep-rooted friendship. Kageyama wished he could bounce back to Hinata like that, he wished he could but  _now he couldn't_ and damn it he needed to stop making this circle back to himself because here was Hinata in a hospital bed and-

He laid his head down on Hinata's hand, mindful of all the damn wires and tubes sticking into it, and let his eyes dry on the soft skin. He could hear Hinata's breath, like the rasps of a newborn animal taking in the air of life. Now, it seemed, Hinata was barely clinging on it. Kageyama was so scared, he was so scared that he would never see those bright eyes shine the same way again. 

They eventually had to leave for school, but they all adamantly promised to be back that evening to see if Hinata had woken up yet. His mother thanked them, still on the cusp of sorrow. 

The day dragged Kageyama into a slump and by the time practice rolled around, none of them were interested. They played, hitting balls and blocking spikes but none of it really  _mattered._ Kageyama stood at the left end of the court, holding a volleyball in his hands and staring. Oddly enough, Tsukishima hadn't shown up the whole day. 

His eyes bored blankly into the net, not really processing much of anything. Asahi shook his shoulders, eyes concerned. 

"What are you doing?" He asked.

Kageyama looked down at the ball and then back up to Asahi, "I dunno, I don't know what to do." 

His admission sounded even more pathetic out loud than it had in his head. Asahi's eyes searched for Suga, who immediately sped over and offered to practice with Kageyama, even though his voice sounded ridiculously cheery. Kageyama couldn't even muster up the strength to be that plastic happy. He felt that such mirth was always better practiced genuinely. 

Three days later, Hinata woke up. 

Tsukishima had returned on the second day, looking ruffled and upset. He said that he had gone to speak with his brother about something, and now that it was over, he felt he could play volleyball and attend to Hinata better. Kageyama didn't comment, but his interest had been piqued. A ball of something interesting had swung by them all, and now the blonde had seemed to pass a secret by their ears without their notice. 

He figured it out in the end, however.

Kageyama went to the hospital as soon as he heard from Takeda (which was morning practice) and ended up missing all his classes. 

It was terrifying, but his heart had been caught in his throat in a motion he had never experienced before. Like a painful reminder, he forced himself up those shiny hallways and into the pale room. He was sweating wildly and felt as if he might faint.  Scenarios of that room flashed in his mind the entire way, as if he was intent on torturing himself no matter where he actually was. 

Hinata was sitting upright when he arrived, breathing on his own. His heartbeat was steady and it calmed Kageyama's nerves. When he turned, he smiled, but only barely. His lips were tight with bruises and the weight of his new disability. Kageyama wanted to pick it up and tie it to the sides of his ears, to make sure that it would never falter again, but he knew that the problem wasn't that simple. 

"How are you?" He asked dumbly.

Hinata snorted, "Pfft, only you would be stupid enough to ask that, bakayama." 

Natsu and his mother were gone, and it was only Kageyama in that little room with that little middle blocker (who wasn't a middle blocker anymore  _no goddamn-)_. The rest of the team would surely follow in a bit, but Kageyama was glad he had left when he did. All that noise and energy would be too much for him to speak. He would become a coward in their personalities and be swallowed up by them. 

Kageyama scowled, "Shut up." 

Hinata did so visibly. It was worrying. 

"So..where's everyone else?" Hinata asked slowly.

"At practice. It's still really early," Kageyama explained.

Hinata's eyes widened, "Whoa! You left practice for me!" 

Kageyama blushed, "Of course I did. You're more important than volleyball. And besides, it's not the same without you there." 

Hinata looked away. Kageyama had inadvertently tripped over the fear they had all been sliding around. Strings of anxiety began to snap and Kageyama could practically  _hear_ the stress building in Hinata's heart as he spoke his next words. All those schemes he had dreamed up as he had run before were nothing to the pressure he was experiencing right now. 

"Well, you'll have to get used to that, right?" 

Kageyama gulped, "Don't say stuff like that." 

Hinata mustered up a glare, but it looked half-hearted and painful. Forced onto his cheeks because Kageyama believed he didn't know what other expression to make. The muscles in his face just weren't designed for such an acidic expression and therefore he appeared more wet than actually vengeful. But Kageyama knew that there was more than enough anger coursing through that little body for the both of them.

If it were him, he'd be  _pissed._

Hell, it wasn't him, and he was  _pissed._

Was that because he had kissed Hinata under the stars five weeks ago? Was it because they sometimes hugged during study sessions and held hands on the bus and because HInata  _smiled_ like nothing else Kageyama had ever seen? He was beginning to get nervous, but Hinata's fractured expression pulled him back to Earth. 

"It's true though, isn't it? The doc said I would  _probably_ never walk again idiot. So I obviously can't play volleyball!" His voice rose up into a shout. It was too early to be having this conversation, it was  _too early_ to be going through this.

It was-

It was-

Kageyama could-

"Don't just stare at me like I'm a freakin' fish Kageyama! Like something you caught on a line. You know it's true and I know it's true and  _oh god-"_

Out of all the tears Kageyama had seen those past days, these hurt the most. 

Kageyama sputtered, "No. Don't cry. Hinata,  _please,_ we'll get through this."

Hinata shook his head, "Maybe you will! But there I'll be that stupid ex-volleyball player who got hit by a car and now  _everyone_ feels sorry for him. I'll be your honorary team member who carries the fucking water bottles and you'll be out there setting for Tanaka-senpai or-"

He broke off in a crack of emotion, too burnt to continue. 

He put his head in his hands, crying deeply, "I just wanted to fly. I was so close. I was so close. Kageyama. Kageyama I was so close,  _please,"_

Kageyama felt his chest burst. He felt tears slip down his face but he didn't bother wiping them. Hinata was shaking, his small, shaved head a quivering mass of color in that sea of white. Kageyama reached out and pulled him into his arms, trying not to sob too loudly on his head. Hinata grabbed onto his shirt, his fingers embedded themselves in his practice jacket. 

"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry we couldn't do it together Kageyama," Hinata muttered.

"You idiot. How could I ever blame you?" 

They held each other for a long time and Kageyama experienced such an odd sensation of satisfaction and anger that he remembered the way it singed his stomach for months afterwards. 

**Author's Note:**

> ahaha plz dont kill me
> 
> also i will explain why tsuki was acting so out of character in a diff oneshot. it will be sure to cause pain and suffering then too.


End file.
